


These Dreams (Are Getting Out of Hand)

by Engineer104



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempt at Humor, Dreams, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Reincarnation, more fluff than angst though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 12:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2428334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren knows he has nightmares, but lately his dreams have become pretty tame.</p><p>Too bad he can't seem to remember what they were even about.</p><p>Yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Dreams (Are Getting Out of Hand)

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for the [snkkkinkmeme](http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/2848.html?thread=3971616#cmt3971616).
> 
> I'm actually kind of proud of this?
> 
> (And I finally finished something in the canon universe! Sort of...)

Eren is well-acquainted with half-forgotten nightmares, oh yes.  He knows intimately the rapid-fire heartbeat and shallow breathing that accompanies sudden, midnight wakefulness, the terror of something. . . unknown.  Did that happen?  _Will_ that happen?  _What happened?_

What Eren is entirely unfamiliar with, however, is waking up slowly after a full eight hours, drifting into consciousness like a summer breeze, after lovely visions of barely there. . .  Well, they felt more like memories than anything else, but for the life of him he can’t recall anything, just the _sensations. . ._

The contentedness of a fulfilling life;

The happiness of being surrounded by family and friends;

The pleasure of passing the time with a lover;

The anger at injustice, the frustrated helplessness, and the intense sadness are still present, but even after Eren is awake and cannot remember anything about his dreams, he knows – is completely _sure_ of it – that the negative feelings have nothing to do with titans.

* * *

He sees them in bits and pieces, during random moments.

During hand-to-hand combat training with Annie:

_“Keep your arms close to your body,” Annie advises, her seemingly bored gaze inspecting his stance._

_Eren tucks in his elbows, conscious of the way his too-big_ dobak _bunches at his armpits.  “Like this?” he asks._

_Annie doesn’t reply, simply falls into her stance as seamlessly as a dancer posing, and swipes out at him with her leg.  When Eren fails to block her and falls, clutching his throbbing leg, she says, “Not even close.”_

During horseback riding:

_“Eren, what do you want for your birthday?” his mother asks during dinner._

_Eren swirls his fork through the spaghetti on his plate, pretending to think.  In reality, he’s had something in mind for quite a long time. . .  “A car,” he replies._

_He expects them to be shocked, for his father to spit out his drink and for his mother to refuse immediately, but instead, Dr. Jaeger wonders in a perfectly measured voice, “Why?”_

_Eren shrugs, absentmindedly nibbling on a piece of garlic bread.  “I’m going to college soon,” he points out.  “Shouldn’t I be able to drive myself around?  You know, so_ you _don’t have to.”_

_Dr. Jaeger exchanges a glance with his wife, who’s wearing a worried expression that betrays her thoughts of the drunk driver that almost took her life – and took her legs instead.  She gives a tiny nod, her lips twisting into a grimace, before Dr. Jaeger tells Eren, “We’ll consider it.”_

During three-dimensional maneuvering:

 _“Eren, pass the ball!” Connie goads from a few yards away, waving his hands and making himself_ very _noticeable._

_Eren grins, winking, and kicks it in the entirely opposite direction, towards Mikasa, who bounces it off her forehead so she can take control with her feet.  He jogs after her, keeping pace with Connie, as she tears down the field to the goal, where Reiner stands just inside the net._

_Mikasa kicks it away, and it sails cleanly over Reiner’s outstretched hands, landing against the net with a soft scuff.  When Eren catches up with her, he claps her on the back, returning her slight smile with a wider one of his own._

_He can hear Armin applauding from the sidelines while their team gathers around Reiner, the captain.  “We’re gonna be champions this year!” he declares with a wide grin.  “Come on, bring it in.”_

_They join hands in the middle, Reiner’s large fist at the bottom and Mikasa’s slender palm at the top._

During arguments with (against) Jean:

 _Armin gushes to him about his university over the phone.  “I can_ feel _the learning!” he exclaims happily.  “I, oh my God, Eren, I love it!”_

_“I’m glad to hear it,” Eren says, and he is, even though they’re at different colleges, apart for the first time since they were children_

_But the truth is, Eren loves college too, if for a rather different reason; he loves how everything feels possible, how he can change anything if he put his mind, heart, and soul to the task._

_He goes to his first protest during his second week, shouting against yet another foreign, innocent-murdering war, passing out fliers to students scuttling past the crowd._

_It’s as he blindly shoves a flier (detailing the number of non-American civilian casualties versus American civilian deaths in the last few foreign wars combined) that he manages to piss_ him _off._

_“Hey, watch it, asshole, I’m late to chem!” he declares immediately, interrupting Eren mid-chant._

_Eren turns his head to glare at him, at his sharp, narrow face and thin eyes and weird haircut, at his flannel shirt (in this weather?), at the college lanyard that only first years wear.  “Just take the flier,” he retorts, rolling his eyes.  “It only takes a second.”_

_The White Rabbit snatches the flier from Eren’s hand and crumples it up while he watches, tossing it over his shoulder.  Eren gapes at him and has to stop himself from punching the bastard by remembering that he’s at an anti-war protest._

_But he won’t let this stand.  He yells at his retreating back, “Don’t fucking litter, asshole!”_

_As luck would have it, the guy is in Eren’s chemistry lab._

_In fact, he’s Eren’s lab partner._

_His name is Jean, and he’s as much of a dick as the first impression led him to believe._

* * *

Mikasa and Armin begin to notice Eren zoning out during random moments, how he stares into his bowl, doesn’t even notice when Sasha starts sneaking entire spoons of stew from it, barely blinks when Mikasa rebukes her and stuffs an entire loaf of bread into her mouth to sate her.

It only lasts for a few minutes, ten at most, and at best it results in an emptier stomach than usual; at worst, he can’t walk without a limp for hours.

When Jean goads Eren into a fight per usual after a particularly grueling day of training, he drifts off in the middle of the other’s argument. . .

_“What’s the point, though?” Jean wonders.  He leans against his hand, chin in palm and elbow on table, a pose as familiar to Eren as the pattern of their debates._

_Eren sips at his hot chocolate, contemplating a response, before he smirks and says, “You’re such a defeatist, Jean.  If you think like that, you’re right; there isn’t a point.”_

_Jean rolls his eyes, an action that Eren could’ve predicted, and says, “I’m just saying, why would people talking loudly convince the president?  He can do whatever the fuck he wants with the army; it’s in the fucking Constitution.”_

_Eren scowls and retorts, “It’s his first term; if he wants to be reelected—“_

_“Most people don’t care, dumbass,” Jean says.  He sounds almost defeated, as if he wants to agree with Eren but knows he can’t – that it’s useless._

_Eren, unsure what, exactly, comes over him, reaches across the table and rests his palm over the back of Jean’s hand.  “You know, if we don’t fight, we can’t win, so might as well try, right?”_

_Jean stares at their hands, frowning, but then his pale lips twist into a smirk.  “You fucker, you gave me that same advice before I went to Professor Smith asking about research.”_

_Eren retracts his hand, sensing that its time was up, and feels his face warm._ Caught. _He retorts, “It’s good advice, asshole.”_

Eren blinks, flinching suddenly when he sees Jean gaping at him, a stark contrast from the warm smirk he’d just envisioned.

“What the fuck just happened?” Jean demands, and he sounds more confused than angry.

“I uh. . .”  Eren doesn’t know what to say, for once.  _I just flashbacked to a conversation you and I never had in a place you and I have never been and we both used words that you and I never used and it seemed like we were actually_ friends—

“Whatever,” Jean says, interrupting his internal rambling, and he looks peculiarly disheartened as he shoves off to resume his seat beside Marco.

Eren stares after him for a second and returns to Mikasa and Armin, to them watching him warily.  Before either of them can say anything, he says, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Armin frowns but doesn’t press and Mikasa simply pulls her scarf up to cover her nose in a show of discomfort.

* * *

It’s not that the visions  _bother_ Eren, exactly, but they trouble him.

More specifically, it troubles him that they _don’t_ trouble him.

Instead, he finds himself lying awake, half-wishing he could live in the world of so-realistic-they-might-be-memories dreams, and half-hoping he can forget them and continue his life as usual.

He knows this isn’t healthy, living in a world inside his head rather than the one outside his body, even if it _is_ idealistic, even if he knows what the ocean is, how it feels ( _the chilly stickiness, the waves breaking against his back, both laughing and coughing when he resurfaces_ ), how it tastes ( _the unpleasant saltiness against his tongue and burning through his throat, a hint of sulfur making his nose twitch_ ). . .  He can tell Armin, can’t he?  Armin will want to know.

Even if that world is without titans, even if his mother is alive and father isn’t missing, even if he can bury his toes in sand and _protest_ wars instead of fight them, even if he and Jean are friends. . .

Maybe Eren once belonged to that world, or maybe that world once belonged to him.  But now he’s in _this_ titan-infested one, and he has to work his ass off for a small portion of what he might’ve had, and risk his sanity in the process.

* * *

_Eren holds his diploma in hand, staring at it, bracing himself.  He probably has less than five minutes till his parents, Armin, and Mikasa ambush him._

_It’ll have to do._

_Jean finds him first though, and Eren has to bite back the annoyance at that, has to remind himself that he hasn’t even reached the important part.  But as he looks up at Jean and Jean looks down at him, he recognizes that he appears as nervous as he feels._

_They make eye contact for a split second, glancing away right when Eren can see the blush spreading over Jean’s cheeks.  Warmth blooms on his own, and his heart pounds so loudly he’s worried everyone around can hear it even over the cacophony of happy, relieved voices._

_“You, uh, didn’t toss your hat?” Jean observes, interrupting their uncomfortable silence._

_Eren flicks his eyes over to him and shrugs.  “I worked hard enough in college,” he points out.  “I didn’t want to look for it.  And it’s a_ cap _.”_

_“Whatever, asshole,” Jean retorts, rolling his eyes, but for the irritation in his voice, he sounds almost giddy, cheerful, happy. . ._

_And he’s smiling, flashing perfect white teeth at Eren, hazel eyes glinting invitingly, and although Eren almost always want to kiss him, now he really_ really _wants to kiss him._

_So he does._

_Jean freezes when their lips first touch, but to Eren’s immense relief, he relaxes almost immediately, barely flinching when their noses bump, and embraces Eren just as tightly as Eren is embracing him._

_“I knew it,” a soft voice says from behind Eren._

_Eren pulls away, sharing an apologetic glance with Jean before glancing over his shoulder at his family and best friends.  He grins at them and asks nonchalantly, “Knew what?”_

_His mother raises an eyebrow at him, bemused as she waves her hand for his new diploma (which Eren entirely forgot he held), and his father coughs, looking uncomfortable.  Armin, though, stares at Eren and Jean with a knowing look in his eyes, and Mikasa seems way too smug for someone so stoic._

_“I knew you were dating,” Armin elaborates._

_Jean pushes Eren away, as if that comment, rather than the audience, is the trigger.  “W-we’re not dating,” he denies immediately._

_Eren rolls his eyes and crosses his arms.  “Yet,” he says, inserting a bit of teasing into his tone._

_Jean grins sheepishly at him._

_Eren’s mother clears her throat, and he passes her the glistening diploma.  He watches her gush over it, running her fingertips along the shiny lettering declaring his Bachelor of Science; he bends down and kisses her cheek while she declares her pride in him._

_Behind him, Eren can hear Jean awkwardly introducing himself to his father._

* * *

Eren jerks awake, so shocked by this new dream that he almost hits his head against the bunk above him.

He chews on his lip, thinking. . .  _What the fuck?_

Eren and Jean. . . _together_?  Eren and Jean. . .  _kissing_?

In what world?

The notion is so ridiculous that Eren laughs himself back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts?
> 
> Thanks for reading. =]


End file.
